$81 million stolen by hackers, an internal investigation is ongoing

12 March, 2016

Bangladeshi Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith March 8 accused Federal Reserve Bank of New York of “irregularities” that led to the unauthorized transfer of $100 million from the account of Bangladesh central bank. The funds had been stolen by hackers and some had been traced to the Philippines. The money was converted into pesos and deposited through a branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.in the account of an unidentified Chinese-Filipino businessman who runs a business flying high net worth gamblers to the Philippines. Four requests to transfer a total of about $81m to the Philippines went through, but a fifth, for $20m, to a Sri Lankan non-profit organisation was held up because the hackers misspelled the name of the NGO, Shalika Foundation, leaving $81 million unaccounted for. Initially, the Sri Lankan transaction reached Pan Asia Banking Corp, which went back to Deutsche Bank for more verification because of the unusually large size of the payment, a Pan Asia official said.
Hackers misspelled “foundation” in the NGO’s name as “fandation”, prompting a routing bank, Deutsche Bank, to seek clarification from the Bangladesh central bank, which stopped the transaction, one of the officials said. The hacking of Bangladesh Bank happened sometime between 4-5 February, over the Bangladeshi weekend, which falls on a Friday, the officials said. The bank’s offices were shut.
You have to admit that stealing a hundred million bucks — and attempting to steal almost a billion — is pretty impressive! And all they needed was a SWIFT code. It makes all that hard work in heist flicks like “Ocean’s 11” and “The Italian Job” seem pretty silly by comparison.

The ECB had to resort to negative deposit rates to scare European banks into taking cash out of the Eurosystem and putting it to work elsewhere. Maybe when a hundred million bucks vanishes into thin air from under the nose of the U.S. central bank, it will have an even greater effect!

Executive-suite alterations, docked pay and company fines need to be paired with criminal prosecutions

A consumer finance company affiliated with Mizuho, made at least $2 million in small loans to buyers with links to Japan’s organized crime syndicates without properly vetting their backgrounds. The syndicates use the loans to help finance their activities.

Mizuho Bank, which bought and bundled these loans from its affiliate, found gangster-linked loans on its books in 2010 but failed to inform the authorities, according to a report by outside lawyers appointed by the bank to investigate the case.
But the lawyers said they could find no evidence that Mizuho officials intentionally tried to hide the loans from investigators.

Mizuho’s management instead simply “failed to appreciate the gravity of collaborating with organized crime,” Hideki Nakagomi, who headed the panel of lawyers, said on Monday. He acknowledged that many officials at the bank had told the investigators “they did not remember what happened.”

Mizuho, based in Tokyo, announced late on Monday that its president and chief executive, Yasuhiro Sato, would keep his job, though he and 53 other current and past executives will take a pay cut for up to six months. Mr. Sato also serves as president and chief executive of the bank’s parent, the Mizuho Financial Group.

“I apologize from the bottom of my heart,” Mr. Sato said at a news conference, bowing deeply in front of cameras. “I take very seriously the fact that we find ourselves in this situation.”

The group’s chairman, Takashi Tsukamoto, who plays a mostly advisory role at Mizuho, will step down.

The scandal has done little damage to the company’s stock, which actually rose 2.45 percent on Monday after news of the report.

The shady lending came to light after the Japanese banking regulator, the Financial Services Agency, censured Mizuho last month over its handling of the loans. The loans underscore how organized crime groups continue to draw money from the financial system here despite efforts to shut them out.

Used-car loans have long been known to be part of illicit fund-raising schemes run by gangsters. In one often-used method, gang members conspire with a dealer to buy a car — like a slick, black Mercedes-Benz of the type favored by gangsters here — for a far higher amount than the usual asking price, then apply for a used-car loan to cover the inflated price. The scheme gives gangsters access to easy financing; the car can be sold or fitted with new license plates so it can be used to apply for further loans, according to local news reports.

Members of organized crime groups are not supposed to have such access to financing from big banks like Mizuho as a result of a 1991 law that made money-laundering illegal. Since then, the Japanese authorities have bolstered rules requiring that banks more vigorously scrutinize potential clients to check for any ties to organized crime. Mizuho said its loan officials typically checked applications against its nationwide database of known members of organized crime groups and their associates.

But the auto loans in question, about 230 transactions totaling about $2 million, were made by the Orient Corporation, a much smaller consumer financing company affiliated with Mizuho that carried out far less stringent background checks on potential buyers, the report from the outside panel said. Last week, an investigation by the daily Mainichi Shimbun said used-car loans from Orient, known as Orico, were typically approved in about 15 minutes with minimal identification checks that were conducted by fax.

Mizuho periodically bought up bundles of these loans from Orico and did not stringently check each loan, the report said. When some gangster-linked loans came to light during a routine internal inspection, Mizuho instructed Orico not to give further loans to those gangsters. But it did not cut off existing loans or inform the authorities.

The bank initially said that knowledge of the matter went only as far as the bank’s compliance officers but later acknowledged that Mr. Sato and other members of Mizuho’s board had been aware.

Mizuho Financial Group Inc. President Yasuhiro Sato gave up six months of pay for failing to stop loans made to yakuza crime syndicates. Takashi Tsukamoto will also forgo a half year’s compensation and give up his role as chairman of Mizuho Bank Ltd., keeping his post at the parent company.
Pain, Shame
No leading bank executives have been jailed since the global financial crisis. The largest lenders are so big that criminal charges could threaten the global economy, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a Senate hearing this March, saying that made it “difficult for us to prosecute.”
Executive-suite alterations, docked pay and company fines need to be paired with criminal prosecutions, according to Jennifer Taub at Vermont Law School.
“You have to have some kind of pain,” she said, “and some kind of shame.”

[earlier]
The US has targeted organised crime by freezing the financial assets of two groups – Japan’s Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza group and the Brothers’ Circle.
The Brothers’ Circle (f.k.a. Family of Eleven; f.k.a. The Twenty) is a Transnational Criminal Organization, multi-ethnic criminal group composed of leaders and senior members of several Eurasian criminal groups largely based in countries of the former Soviet Union

The Department of the Treasury said it was also freezing the assets of key members, including Yamaguchi-gumi leaders Kenichi Shinoda.and Kiyoshi Takayama